Nikolas Schiller

Nikolas Schiller (born October 10, 1980) is an American blogger, a prominent digital map artist in the blogosphere, a vegetarian,[1] Burner[2], and a cannabis reform activist who lives in Washington, DC. He is primarily known for developing Geospatial Art,[3] which is the name he gave to his collection of abstract fantasy maps created from kaleidoscopic aerial photographs, and co-founding DCMJ, where he helped write Initiative 71[4], which legalized the cultivation and possession of small amounts of cannabis in the nation's capital.

Nikolas Schiller
Born
Nikolas Schiller

(1980-10-10)October 10, 1980
Ballwin, St. Louis, Missouri
NationalityAmerican
Known forAerial Photography, Digital Art, Cartography
MovementGeospatial Art

Biography

He was born in Saint Louis, Missouri.[5] In 1999 he moved to Washington, D.C. to study geography and computer science at the George Washington University. In 2004 he created a blog called The Daily Render and unlike many people at the time, chose to prevent search engines from accessing the content.[5] Over the next 1000 days he developed and published a unique type of map composed of kaleidescopic aerial photographs.[3] In the lead up to the second inauguration of George W. Bush, he developed one of the first on-line maps of the planned events to use aerial photography.[5] In May 2007 he created a site for image macros of his maps in the vein of the popular LOLcats meme[6] with his website LOLMaps. During the summer of 2007 he created website showing a simulated I.E.D. experience using a "drive" down a street constructed with Google Streetview.[7] At that time he also discovered that the aerial and satellite imagery of downtown Washington, D.C. was purposely out-dated for national security concerns.[8] In the fall of 2007 he designed the record cover for Thievery Corporation's 12" single Supreme Illusion (ESL110),[9] which features aerial photography of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In March 2008 he removed the robots exclusion protocols from his blog, which now allows his website to be accessed from all major search engines. In July 2008 he was assaulted on his doorstep by three men, but survived with only a bloody lip.[10] As a blogger, he has worked with writers at Wonkette[11] and the Huffington Post.[12][13] He currently resides in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Activism

Since the beginning of 2004 he has been involved with the DC statehood movement. He was served on the steering committee of the DC Statehood Green Party from 2005 to 2007 and was a delegate to the Green Party of the United States from 2006 to 2007. He has been a vocal critic of DC voting rights legislation that would give residents of the District of Columbia only one vote in the United States House of Representatives.[14] He has created a DC Flag [15] and a DC license plate to express the concept of taxation with one-third representation. He has been known to attend voting rights demonstrations[16] wearing colonial outfits[5][17] to emphasize the fact that District resident are colonists who suffer from Taxation Without Representation.

In February 2009, under the motto “The United States government operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so should Metro,” he created a Facebook Group called "Washington Metropolitan Area Residents for a 24 Hour Metro" to help lobby for expanded operating hours.[18]

In July 2009 he put up a sign on a street lamp outside of MTV's The Real World house in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC that said IN THE REAL WORLD ALL AMERICANS DESERVE FULL REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS.[19] In November 2009, while dressed in colonial attire, he was asked to take off his tricorn hat during a Congressional hearing on budget autonomy for the District of Columbia and was briefly detained by the U.S. Capitol Police, but was allowed to return to the hearing after promising to not put the hat back on.[20][21] As an antiwar activist, he once arranged bricks on the rooftop of his home to spell out NO WAR[22] so that his message would show up on Google Maps.

In January 2010, he co-founded a non-profit organization called the DC Patients' Cooperative, which he hoped would become a licensed medical cannabis dispensary in the District of Columbia.[23] In May 2010, after the Council of the District of Columbia passed legislation to regulate the medical cannabis program, he went on record advocating for more employment protections for qualified patients.[24] In February 2011, he helped organize a town hall meeting to educate the public on the medical cannabis program's regulations.[25][26] On the one year anniversary of Congress approving the legislation, he helped organize a press conference to call on the District of Columbia government to fully implement the program, allow patients to grow their own medicine, and to establish an affirmative defense for patients.[27] Due to the "glacial pace"[28] and a requirement to sign a legal waiver concerning federal prosecution for participation in the program, he said that the organization is taking a "wait and see" approach instead of applying for a license.[29]

On February 21, 2012, a photo of him in colonial attire appeared in Washington Post columnist Vivek Wadhwa's article America, keep rewarding your dissidents[30]

In the summer of 2013 Schiller began driving an art car around Washington, DC with a sculpture of a genetically modified apple attached to the roof in order to protest the U.S. government's policies on the labeling of genetically modified foods.[31] Named Goldie,[32] the Ford Escort was a part of a fleet of art cars that featured sculptures of a corn cob, soybean, sugar beet, and tomato[33] that were designed to appear cross-bred with a fish to humorously convey the message that unlabeled genetically engineered food was fishy. In August 2013 he drove the car across the United States from Washington, DC to Washington state in order to promote the passage of Ballot Initiative 522.[34]

Selected works
gollark: I'm not forgetting something. I have something right here.
gollark: The cool police were also deprecated, so that's no longer a concern.
gollark: What flaws? Being far too cool™?
gollark: I hacked time and undeprecated it.
gollark: Also, you can't just fake the logs, they are BLOCKCHAIN™™™ed.

References
  1. Tommy Nguyen (July 4, 2004). "Red, White and Golden Arches: The Star-Spangled Banner Ad". News. The Washington Post. Retrieved November 1, 2009.
  2. Mike Higdon (August 30, 2018). "Group baths at Burning Man: Dirty burners line up at Dr. Bronner's soap-funded camp". News. The Reno Gazette Journal. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
  3. Teresa Méndez (December 14, 2007). "The art of Map Fest". News. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved December 14, 2007.
  4. Adam Eidinger Nikolas Schiller (January 11, 2016). "The D.C. Council's marijuana club ban inadvertently creates the 'smokeasy'". Opinion. Washington Post. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
  5. David Montgomery (March 14, 2007). "Here Be Dragons". News. Washington Post. Retrieved March 14, 2007.
  6. Scott Beale (May 30, 2007). "LOL Not Just For Cats Anymore". News. Laughing Squid. Retrieved May 14, 2008.
  7. Nikolas Schiller. "Google StreetView I.E.D." Retrieved July 19, 2009.
  8. Jenna Johnson (July 22, 2007). "Google's View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy". News. Washington Post. Retrieved July 22, 2007.
  9. Thievery Corporation (October 11, 2007). "Discogs: Thievery Corporation – Supreme Illusion ESL110". Album Cover. ESL Music. Retrieved November 14, 2007.
  10. Angela Valdez (July 25, 2008). "Our Morning Roundup". News. Washington City Paper. Retrieved February 14, 2009.
  11. Jim Newell (January 14, 2009). "Come To Wonkette's Patriotic Inaugural Ball This Friday!". Blog. Wonkette. Retrieved January 16, 2009.
  12. Jason Linkins (January 14, 2009). "Vlogorrhea, With Jason And Liz: Foreign Correspondents". Blog. Huffington Post. Retrieved February 26, 2009.
  13. Jason Linkins (January 14, 2009). "Previously, On The 2008 Election". Blog. Huffington Post. Retrieved November 26, 2008.
  14. Adrienne Washington (December 4, 2006). "Third of representation a start, but not enough". News. Washington Times. Retrieved March 4, 2009.
  15. Martin Austermuhle (March 14, 2007). "Fight for Voting Rights Goes Online". Blog. DCist.com. Archived from the original on February 18, 2010. Retrieved March 4, 2009.
  16. Bill Clark (April 18, 2007). "Roll Call Photo of the Week". News. Roll Call. Archived from the original on February 1, 2013. Retrieved December 14, 2008.
  17. Mary Beth Sheridan (January 28, 2007). "Hoyer Says He Will Soon Bring Bill to House Floor". News. Washington Post. Retrieved December 14, 2008.
  18. Kytja Weir (January 5, 2011). "A 24-hour Metro? For one rider, the train is always half full". News. Examiner. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
  19. Dan Zak (August 16, 2009). "The Real World in D.C.: When MTV Moves In, So Does Drama". News. Washington Post. Retrieved August 16, 2009.
  20. Amy Argetsinger & Roxanne Roberts (November 19, 2009). "Tricorn trouble for D.C. voting rights protester". News. The Washington Post. Retrieved November 19, 2009.
  21. Megan Hughes (November 18, 2009). "D.C. Leader Press Congress For More Autonomy". News. WAMU 88.5 American University Radio. Archived from the original (radio) on November 22, 2009. Retrieved November 18, 2009.
  22. Harmon, Katherine (September 23, 2009). The Map As Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography. Princeton Architectural Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-56898-762-0.
  23. Drug War Chronicle (April 23, 2010). "Feature: Mixed Reactions to DC City Council's Medical Marijuana Regulations". News. Drug War Chronicle. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  24. Ashley Southall (May 5, 2010). "Washington, D.C., Approves Medical Use of Marijuana". News. New York Times. Retrieved May 4, 2010.
  25. Audrey Barnes (February 10, 2011). "Town Hall Meeting Held To Explain Rules and Regulations of DC's Medical Marijuana Program". News. MyFoxDC. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
  26. Mike Conneen (February 10, 2011). "Advocates push for medical marijuana law to go into effect". News. TBD. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
  27. Thomas Howell Jr. (July 26, 2011). "D.C. medical marijuana backers still waiting". News. Washington Times. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
  28. Victor Zapana (July 29, 2011). "Official: Medical marijuana in D.C. by May 2012". News. Washington Post. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
  29. Thomas Howell Jr. (October 10, 2011). "Medical marijuana applicants facing D.C. deadline". News. Washington Times. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
  30. Vivek Wadhwa (February 10, 2011). "America, keep rewarding your dissidents". News. Washington Post. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  31. Robert Samuels (June 13, 2013). "Something fishy in D.C.: Cartop protest art, minus the protest, becomes a spectacle". News. Washington Post. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  32. Amanda Peterka (August 1, 2013). "'Fishy food' cars attract stares, promote GMO labeling". News. Greenwire. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
  33. Arin Greenwood (July 31, 2013). "Fishy Art Cars Bring Anti-GMO Message On Cross-Country Demonstration, From Washington, D.C., To Washington State". News. Huffington Post. Retrieved October 6, 2013.
  34. Matthew Piper (August 13, 2013). "Cross-country drive aims to show there's something 'fishy' about GMOs". News. Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  35. Ali, Kazim (September 1, 2009). Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 978-0-8195-6916-5.
  36. Benton-Short, Lisa; Rennie Short, John (December 6, 2007). Cities and Nature. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-35589-6.
  37. Thompson, Nato (January 28, 2009). Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism. Coauthors: Independent Curators International. Melville House Publishing. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-09-163658-6.
  38. Association of American Geographers (June 22, 2007). "Geography & the Humanities Symposium program" (PDF). Program. Association of American Geographers. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2010. Retrieved September 24, 2008.
  39. Michael Dear; Jim Ketchum; Sarah Luria; Doug Richardson (May 26, 2011). GeoHumanities: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415589802.
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